Costco checkout line, November 2018 file. Kurt Kaiser / Wikimedia Commons (CC0, cropped).
U.S. retail spending rose 0.15% in October, a 13th consecutive monthly gain, as consumers continued to spend but the pace of growth eased from September, according to a card-transaction measure released Wednesday by the National Retail Federation.
Total retail sales excluding automobile dealers and gasoline stations reached $561.7 billion, up 0.15% from September and 3.57% from a year earlier. Both comparisons are seasonally adjusted.
The Retail Monitor’s core measure, which also excludes restaurants, totaled $454.2 billion. Core sales increased 0.26% month over month and 3.36% year over year.
The monthly increases were smaller than September’s 0.28% gain in total sales and 0.27% rise in core sales. September sales were $560.8 billion on the total measure and $453.1 billion on the core measure.
NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said Halloween spending and early winter holiday promotions helped pull demand forward. He said households were timing purchases around special offers as they managed their budgets.
Electronics and appliances led the year-over-year category gains with a 9.3% increase. Furniture and home furnishings fell 2.62%, while sporting goods declined 0.44%, the federation said in its November 11 release.
This is not the Census Bureau’s retail sales survey. The Retail Monitor uses anonymized purchases from a panel of roughly 120 million debit and credit cards supplied by Affinity Solutions. The panel is weighted to reflect U.S. consumers and projected to match Census retail sales totals.
The methodology changed beginning with September data. NRF says the monthly and annual growth figures are not directly comparable with Retail Monitor figures published before September, so October’s readings should not be used to claim a longer-term growth ranking against those earlier reports.
JBizNews Desk | Washington
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